This, that, the other: Pavelski’s 18 in 20, Doherty up from Worcester, Hannan close — and a ‘West Side Story’ revival

SAN JOSE – Back after back-to-back maintenance days (upper body and general soreness).

Focused most of the energy today on Joe Pavelski’s rather remarkable run of 18 goals in the past 20 games. As I type this, only one NHL player has more than Pavelski’s 27 for the season and that’s Alexander Ovechkin with 35.

That topic gets covered in the print edition story now available online here .

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But there a few other things worth noting after a Sharks practice that had so many players on the ice that Eriah Hayes wore the orange jersey that generally means “no contact” even though he wasn’t hurting.

“It felt like training camp out there today,” Todd McLellan said. “We had so many players we didn’t know what to do with him.”

Some of those players were indeed those still rehabbing injuries, Logan Couture among them. Yes, he’s making progress recovering from his hand surgery. No, it hasn’t reached the point where he’s firing the puck yet.

“Just a switch,” McLellan said. “Both of them have played well — a reward for Taylor’s play in the minors, a chance for Matty Tennyson to get back into the lineup. We don’t like to have players sit for too long.”

The 6-foot-7 Doherty has three goals, five assists and 85 penalty minutes in 37 games this season. He’s likely more of an insurance policy at this point as it’s unlikely McLellan wants to tinker with his blue line while on a four-game winning streak, but Doherty said he hadn’t been given his role when we talked earlier today.

“Haven’t had too much time with the coaches yet,” said the 22-year-old whose next NHL game will be his first. “Just got here last night and I’m sure I’ll find out more later on.”

After two and a half season in Worcester, Doherty said, “I think my game’s got to the point where I’m ready for the next level and that’s what I hope to do now.”

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***Scott Hannan said he’s passed the NHL’s required test after a concussion, but probably not yet ready to jump back into the lineup.

“Better every day, but not something fun to go through,” he said of his experience since taking a Dan Cleary elbow to the jaw on Jan. 9.

Hannan played the next game against Boston before his concussion symptoms hit, then stayed home while the Sharks went on their three-game road trip.

“Sometimes you show up and you think you’re OK, and then something shows up a couple days later,” Hannan said.

And he hadn’t mellowed on the fact Cleary escaped any supplemental discipline for the hit to the head.

“It’s funny how that happens,” Hannan said. “Those are the plays you want to take out of the game. You can’t really consider that a hockey play and I think everybody would agree with that in most dressing rooms.”

****The Sharks will try to stretch their winning streak to five games Thursday night against the Winnipeg Jets, the team that handed the Anaheim Ducks their first regulation loss at home on Tuesday night.

McLellan didn’t think his players needed that to take the Jets seriously, not after a shootout loss in Winnipeg back in November – a game that stuck in San Jose’s collective craw because an apparent game-winner by Patrick Marleau was disallowed.

On top of that, the Jets are now 4-0 since Paul Maurice replaced Claude Noel behind the bench. What difference has Maurice made in the team?

“You just see a team that’s a little livelier than it was a couple weeks ago and that’s the impact that a coaching change has,” McLellan said. “Systematically, there’s likely a few little things, but he hasn’t had time to put it into play. It’s more about the presentation and the approach than anything.”

Sharks and Jets. The opening notes of that great “West Side Story” overture/soundtrack already reverberating in my ears.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

I’d love for a bunch of people to go this game dressed in leather jackets all stand up at one point and snap their fingers from side to side. *sigh*

Buddy Elf

That idea is about as good as Zeke’s playoff system.

Phat Stat Phil

What — you’re too young to enjoy a little West Side Story reference?

JasonB

Hey Buddy, a note from last post on your comment:

On the divisional finals:

No, they don’t get reseeded. It was pretty clear in the version i read that the division plays out then the conference.

The top seeded team in the conference pulls the bottom seeded wildcard, so you could have a situation where the central got vancouver and we got Minnesota. But once that is locked in, that team is part of ‘the division’ for the next round where the winner of the 1/4 plays against the winner of the 2/3

Maybe the Sharks promotional people could go all in with a “50’s Night At The Tank”

Buddy Elf

I got the reference… Thought the idea was ridiculous.

SactoShark

Hottest he’s been since the AVs PO series

Buddy Elf

Gotcha… You’re right. I wasn’t positive about the seeding, just made a guess.

Buddy Elf

The following season in the spring,
Him wellwood and Taco Torrey had a hot streak.

SactoShark

are you on crack?

GP_hockeyhappens

OK, I get what is probably going on now. It really is winner of 1/wildcard vs 2/3.

Now I see why it says 1 vs 4 even though the 4 team is the wildcard.

JasonB

If the playoffs were today, this is what the 4 ‘divisions’ would look like(league ranking in parenthesis). 1 team in each of these divisions would emerge to vie for the conference.

“Atlantic”
BOS(7) / TOR (13)
TBL(9) / MTL (11)

“Metro”
PIT(4) / CBJ(17)
NYR(14) / PHI (15)

Central
CHI(2) / VAN(10)
STL(3) / COL(6)

Pacific
ANA(1) / MIN(12)
SJS(5) / LAK(8)

I mean that is just absurd….

sharks1989

So Del Zotto went to the Preds, I was kinda hoping we would pick him up. Maybe we will take a shot at Girardi,.

Buddy Elf

Just giving Zeke a hard time… Come on, thought you would catch that.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

When you’re a Jet
You’re a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dying day

Unfortunately, there’s no Shark lyrics to match that…but it’s a bit more contemporary than “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name” or “Romeo: Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? Juliet: ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy: Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague?”

That concludes the Culture Report from Working the Corners.

Alex

Ok, I understand how the first round matchups are determined. What about the second round though? They talk about the divisional championship series in the second round. But what if we have the following scenario:
5 teams make the playoffs from division A and 3 teams from division B
The winner of division B loses to the wild card, #2 beats #3.
So now in the second round we have 3 teams from division A and 1 team from division B. What happens next? Are teams reseeded like they were before this new system?

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Thanks for the link, Jason. I thought Brooks (the writer) did an objective job of presenting this, with appropriate comments. So this isn’t on him (a NY writer), but I can’t help but think that those at the League’s decision-making level really had their eyes on tv ratings when they came up with this. It would be really, really difficult to not have a NY-based team (that includes the Devils) in the Playoffs, and to get to at least the 2nd round.

Alex

I don’t think it’s absurd, it’s the system that they want in place. If you want to rank teams 1 through 16 league-wide without regard to conferences then you need to have a regular season schedule where everybody plays everybody equal number of times (like in European soccer).
Since NHL has a “weighted” schedule you have to take into account that you play more games against teams of your own division/conference

Tom (fm Quinzee)

No. Jason’s comment below has it right. The article says what he’s saying. It’s Divisions to the Conference Finals. I really thought that the NHL had this right before they did this. One played 8, and if 8 won, and 2 beat 7, 8 played 2, and not “8 got 1’s schedule.” The regular season really meant something. The Kings’ Cup win was an impressive run. They had to beat the best teams, all the way through. Now? The West is tough. I thought Brooks’ column put it well, the Conference unevenness is cyclical. Right now the East is down. But why should a weak team benefit from that?

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Buddy, behind that cynical veneer beats the heat of … a cynic.

If I had hair, I’d get some Brylcreem and a pocket comb, get my DA together, put on my leather, and head for the rumble.

GP_hockeyhappens

Here’s what I think I now understand about the wildcards. The wildcard teams actually could change the division. IOW, they get re-assigned to a division based on their point status. In a sense, the regular season division assignment is thrown out even in the first round for the wildcard teams.

Jason’s PO pairings below identify what appears to be the correct reassignment of the wildcard teams. ‘Nucks have more points that the Wild, so the Wild gets to play the team with the most conf points — Ducks.

In that, we get circled back to the idea of divisional because the Nucks are now attached to Central. If they beat the Hawks, they play the winner of the 2-3 matchup who will be the home team in the second round.

LTNC

Wow. Was that from memory?

LTNC

You go to the rumble. I’ll stay home with Maria.

LTNC

He’ll be hot as long as he’s playing with Thornton. Thornton made Bill Guerin rich and extended Cheechoo’s career by a couple of seasons.
“Get in front and get your stick on the ice and you’ll score 40 goals a season.”

Alex

Ok, it makes sense now. In the article below there was nothing about the second round except that divisional brackets will apply to the second round and it was confusing to me. Thanks.

ZEKE

Not that Pavs isn’t en fuego now, but he was something like +25 over 2 months back then. It really was ridiculous.

ZEKE

On the playoff matchups — it is what it is. There is just no easy way thru the West this year. The good teams are almost all out here. Whoever makes it out, will have earned it.

For LAK, on pace for a very respectable 103 points, their path to a Cup final could look like SJS, ANA, CHI — we’re on pace for 115pts, CHI 120 and ANA on pace for 125. LAK would be probably among the favorites if the played in the east.

Colorado is on pace for 115 points, they are looking at StL, on pace for 119, CHI (120) and then whoever survives our bracket, which could also be 120-ish.

Brutal, anyway you look at it.

GP_hockeyhappens

I agree the article didn’t explain. Neither did the NHL.com article I posted. I think it wasn’t specific in the NYPost article, leaving me with a feeling the author wasn’t 100% sure. That is why I will still have a minor reservation of how it will actually work. But, chances are, the author thought it was an obvious conclusion, which IMO, was not.

Buddy Elf

There is no point in divisions and conferences then… And even though the sharks travel is the worst right now it would be even worse if they played less games against LA and Anaheim and more against east coast teams. Conferences and divisions are necessary.

Is this the best solution? No clue but it is hardly absurd for the reasons you point out. If it is absurd, it’s because in that scenario, for winning, the ducks get to travel half way across the county for the first round.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Yup – I remembered where Google is on my Favorites bar.

But I did remember “when you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way,” etc.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Good idea. Tony didn’t do very well when he decided to back up his posse, did he?

Tom (fm Quinzee)

I really don’t think there’s a “best solution,” Buddy. Before they announced what the realignment was going to be, I got to working on maps, just trying to see what would make sense, but it’s a mess. The geography is tough. I could see what the League decided on as a distinct possibility, but I really didn’t think they’d do it. That Metro Division on the one hand, and the Pacific w/ the Sharks travel on the other.

That said, I didn’t think they’d mess with the playoffs. I’d prefer the Conference set-up, but strictly on a total points basis. Win a weak division, you get seeded where your points put you. All the teams play enough games against other division foes to negate a lot of the weight of division stats. As a side note, I find the NFL’s system to be the worst. Each team plays 6 division games, 10 non-division. The non-division games clearly show a team’s strength.

Buddy Elf

How did that line do in the playoffs?

You get extra points for not using the phrase “completely dominated.”

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Maybe it was just me, but I thought that Brooks article said it pretty straight – it’s a divisional set up. It’s true that a Wild Card team can get put into another division, but it then becomes part of that division. It becomes a wild card in that division … I love puns, did I mention that.

grd22

awesome job by pavelski as he just gets better and better each season.glad hannan’s feeling better.

GP_hockeyhappens

Maybe it was the word/characterizaton of “divisional.” I didn’t read conclusively what divisional had actually meant. Hence, what I see as the confusion. I don’t think it was perfectly clear that the wildcard teams got reassigned through the second round also.

Another way to explain the source of the confusion, we know the Nucks are a Pacific div team. How were they all he sudden not a Pacific div team if they made it to the second round?

renoshark

Just noticed the kid is getting the start tonight. I hope he brings some of his road magic to the Tank tonight.

Alex

In my opinion, the article did not clearly explain what “divisional bracket” was nor did it give a specific example of how things may work out in the second round (something that GP did). Or it just may be that my reading and comprehension is not as good compared to some of you guys.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Boy, you’re leaving yourself open. But it is confusing. I just brushed off the 2nd wild card.

But that 2nd wild card does change things.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Boy, I bet Minny is really regretting not keeping Seto. His fire power had the Ducks worried, believe you me.

EastBayRad

haha either your the troll or his repetition got to you…. your saying it now!